


Warm Windows

by Emolga



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Dreams, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:13:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emolga/pseuds/Emolga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tifa receives a welcomed visit from an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm Windows

The windows feel warm, though no sunlight drifts through them.

Tifa presses the rag down harder, trying in vain to wipe away a stubborn smear of anonymous filth, and finds with a spike of frustration that it’s not going anywhere. The weight of the cloth against her palm is negligible, insignificant; not soft and damp, but barely a presence at all. She wonders if she’s falling ill from lack of sleep, because she feels _off_ somehow, like everything around her is slightly out of place — like someone constructed the bar piece by piece from her memories.

A glance towards the far end of the room reveals the pinball machine, flashing bright colors and periodically issuing playful noises from its external speakers to coax unsuspecting customers into spending all their pocket change. She smiles to herself and abandons the thick slum-grey view from the window in favor of toying with the machine — just a few rounds won’t hurt, before Barret and the others get back from their mission and scold her for messing with the switch that leads to their secret hideout.

She should teach Denzel how to tilt a pinball machine. This one is bolted to the floor, so it would serve as a poor example, but there’s a certain technique that she knows how to exploit — and the new arcade in Edge should have one they can use without any problems. She’ll take him there this weekend, she decides as she reaches into her back pocket to search for some loose coins, because he’s been working so hard at school and he really does deserve to catch a break. He’s such a good kid.

There’s footsteps coming closer. Tifa turns away from the machine and comes face-to-face with Aerith, who’s smiling as widely as the day is long — and Tifa smiles back, because she’s always glad to see her, even when the plate chokes them from above.

“What are you doing here?” She asks, chucking the cleaning rag onto the bar with a well-aimed toss as an afterthought. Aerith sits down in Wedge’s favorite seat, and for some reason Tifa finds herself remembering the time he ate an entire meatloaf on a 500-gil bet from Biggs and Jessie. It almost makes her laugh, but at the same time it makes her feel inexplicably sad.  
“I thought I’d pay a visit,” the Cetra responds, smoothing out her dress with the palms of her hands. No dust from the surrounding wastelands clings to her clothing despite the recent whipping winds that have carried it in big clouds past the city limits — she’s every bit as pristine as always. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.”

Tifa nods in agreement, but she feels slightly frustrated when she thinks back on Costa del Sol, on racing chocobos and drinking Cosmo Candles in the Canyon and watching the rain fall from the safety of an airship, and finds that the memory of their last meeting evades her.

“Drinks are free for friends,” she offers as a means of changing the subject. Aerith laughs and shakes her head, politely declining.  
“I didn’t come here to be a mooch,” the older woman replies with a grin that shows her teeth — a grin that sends a fine shudder down Tifa’s spine for reasons she can’t place. “I just wanted to see how everyone is doing.”

Tifa thinks again, this time about their friends.  
“Barret is alright,” she begins, taking the seat beside Aerith — Jessie’s seat, “but he’s busy with his work. Marlene misses him, but she’s getting by alright. Cloud is around more often now, and it does her a lot of good to see him. ”  
Aerith smiles wider at this, and Tifa feels like she’s been rewarded in some way.  
“Denzel is doing well in school,” she continues. “He’s getting smarter every day — and taller. Nananki is protecting the Canyon, but he tries to visit at least once a year. Cid and Shera are busy with work, too.” They’ve been working on new concepts for airships, of course, but she’s sure that goes without saying. “Vincent’s been getting better at keeping in touch, but we don’t see much of him around here; and Reeve has his hands full with running the WRO, but he stops by sometimes… Usually with Cait Sith.”  
Aerith giggles.  
“A man and his cat,” she says in a playful tone. Tifa nods with a smile and twists the rag around her fingers, then briefly wonders why she still has it — didn’t she toss it onto the bar before?  
“And Yuffie,” she concludes, hesitating with a smirk once words fail her, “… is Yuffie. She’s the same as always.”  
Aerith rewards her again, this time with laughter. Tifa smiles without noticing that the rag is gone.  
“How about you?” she asks, leaning forward where she sits and regulating her gloved hands to her lap. “You should stop by more often… We miss you.”  
“I try,” Aerith explains in a patient tone, “but not everyone lets me in.”  
It feels like a loaded statement, but she can’t figure out why. Tifa worries her teeth between her lip and feels numbness there.

“Are you doing alright?” Her friend prompts before she can come to a solid conclusion. Tifa smiles and nods, feeling her hair — longer, shorter, longer again — slide against her back.  
“I’m fine,” she says honestly, feeling prideful of the progress she’s made since Meteorfall. “— Better. Cloud’s been helping.” For a moment she wonders why she’s been so upset, thinks of Nibelheim and Sephiroth and a world almost destroyed twice over, but a piece of the puzzle is still missing.  
She’s somewhat afraid of what she’ll find if she goes deeper, so she changes the subject once more.  
“Do you want to pay Reeve a visit?” She asks, rising from her seat and gesturing to the door. “I’m sure he’d love to see you. It’s been so long—”  
“— I can’t,” Aerith interrupts, looking away. Tifa starts.  
“Why not?” She inquires curiously. An almost imperceptible shadow falls across her friend’s face, and she looks greyer somehow — grey like the Slums, grey like…

Tifa swallows, twists the rag — it’s back again — and thinks of Costa del Sol, of racing chocobos and drinking Cosmo Candles in the Canyon and watching rain fall from the safety of an airship. She thinks of Denzel, who’s doing so well in school, and realizes that he’s never met Aerith, not even once — thinks of Seventh Heaven, of how Denzel’s never played a pinball machine because there _isn’t_ one, not even one that’s bolted to the floor — because this Seventh Heaven was crushed by the plate, just like Biggs and Jessie and Wedge — and all of them (even Wedge, who once ate an entire meatloaf on a 500-gil bet) are _gone_ now — and the windows that refused to be washed provide a filthy grease-caked view of a sector in Midgar that’s been missing for what feels like ages, before Aerith grinned at Cloud and all of her other friends from where she kneeled at the altar.

“… Because you’re dead.” Tifa voices the realization quietly, and something inside of her cracks as all the tiny anachronisms begin to add up, one by one. “Because I’m dreaming.”

Aerith looks up and smiles sadly, apologetically. Her hand reaches out in a gesture of kindness and understanding, and her fingertips draw nearer and nearer, tiny sparks of Lifestream shooting off her skin like small green fireworks.

“Tifa,” a voice calls out urgently just as Aerith’s warm fingertips brush against her cheek. In that instant, Tifa can feel her friend standing there as though she hasn’t been dead for nearly four years, and she sobs.

The dream ends.

* * *

She wakes with a gasp, feeling hands at her face.

“Tifa,” Cloud repeats insistently, quieter this time. He’s hovering over her with a look of gentle concern, brow furrowed and lips worriedly pouting.

She looks at him drowsily and realizes that her face is wet. Her hand lifts, fingers brushing against his as she investigates — and she finds dampness on her cheeks, evidence of a mysterious grief that he’s trying to wipe away.  
“You were crying,” he explains, the consoling press of his fingers suddenly replaced by the worn, fluffy edge of their blanket. He continues to diligently dry her tears, his expression focused; Tifa realizes that she was soundly asleep and, for some reason, remembers the Seventh Heaven that could once be found in the Slums.  
“I think,” she begins, struggling to form words with a sleep-heavy tongue, “I was having a dream.”  
Cloud nods in agreement, his golden head bobbing, and runs a hand briefly through her hair.  
(It’s shorter than it was when she lived in Midgar — when she helped save the world — but it’s getting longer now, longer than she’s let it grow in years.)

“You okay?” He asks, his expression warming now that his initial panic has abated. She glances at the bedside clock, sees its solid lines form 6:07, and nearly groans before she remembers that it’s their day off.  
“Better now,” she offers as a means of appeasing him. Her hand finds his, and she squeezes his fingers to ensure that she remains grounded. “Thanks.” Comfort begins to seep back in now that her face is dry, and she feels less and less like crying again with every moment that passes.  
He smiles at her; she feels rewarded in some way and smiles back.  
“You should go back to bed,” he suggests, settling back down into the indent his body has carved into the mattress after many nights of slumbering in the same position. The press of his arm comforts her, their fingers still entwined; he bounces her hand twice, running his thumb over the veins that dance around her calloused knuckles. “You can tell me about it in the morning.”  
She hums her answer, already feeling the sluggish pull of sleep drawing her deep into a state of relaxation, and drops off.

* * *

Morning light drifts in through the warm windows. Tifa presses harder against a stubborn spot of grease, sighing in well-deserved satisfaction when it finally comes loose and falls victim to the damp cloth.

“Are we really going to that new arcade?” Denzel asks from his vantage point beside her, bouncing excitedly on the tips of his toes. She hears Marlene laugh at Cloud as they stock the bar together and turns to the three of them with a smile, her hands finding her hips.

“What do you guys think?” She asks, waggling the damp rag with a few brief flicks of her hand. “ _I_ think we’ve earned it.”

Marlene lets out a yelp of agreement and bolts past Cloud, nearly knocking a mug out of his hands in her rush to throw the entirety of her weight against Tifa’s torso.  
“Can we, can we _please_?” The young girl begs, grabbing fistfuls of her guardian’s shirt into her hands urgently and tugging at the fabric there in near-hysterical excitement.

Tifa looks up at Cloud, smiling. He smiles back and nods; that’s all it takes.  
“You two should go get ready,” she says, guiding the children towards the staircase with a gentle nudge from her hands. “We’ll need to get there before everyone in town starts lining up.”

The two scramble up the steps like monsters plagued with Confu, excitedly chattering to one another about which games to try first until their voices vanish behind closed doors.

Grinning, Tifa flings the cloth towards the bar, aiming at the sink. Cloud flinches away from the greasy spatter that follows, defensively holding the jug in front of his face.  
“Been a while since I’ve seen any arcade games,” he admits once the danger is forgotten, setting the newly-cleaned glass onto the counter. The bar-owner nods her agreement and finds her gaze locked on the bare wall, suddenly remembering the pinball machine that occupied the space of her current business’s predecessor.  
“… Maybe I should teach Denzel how to play pinball,” she muses as she dries her hands on her apron. “I’ve always been good at tilting the machine without getting caught.”

For the first time in a while, she thinks of her journey across the Planet — of Costa del Sol and racing chocobos and drinking Cosmo Candles — and misses Aerith mightily and wholly, as though she hasn’t been dead for nearly four years.

Tifa glances at the bar, sees Cloud smiling as he rinses grease from the cloth without being asked, and decides not to mention it.

**Author's Note:**

> Over the past few years I've lost a couple of close family-members — quite unexpectedly, in some cases — and I dream about them often. We'll be doing some mundane things, like having a conversation, and I'll suddenly realize that they've been dead for years; then I wake up feeling disoriented with how much time has passed since I last saw them.
> 
> I tried to convey a sense of dreamlike disjointedness in the dreamy portion of this fic, and I hope I succeeded! |||orz
> 
> (also, I'm a shameless CloTi shipper. This fic portrays a brand of CloTi wherein they've both started to move on together, because happy CloTi is my favorite kind of CloTi!)


End file.
